few interesting stories to pass on about the players and the camp for you blog readers. Firstly, the Cowie twins(best penalty killers in the league) who have played for the red wings for the last three years missed the start of the camp due to having to bring the crops in on the farm. Farming commitments came first, and it has been a rough year for the farmers in Saskatchewan due to the weather. Those twins are no question of double value to both team and their parent's farms. Now the wings have a second set of brothers with an even more interesting story. The Adam's brothers, originally from Russia by way of Nashville, Tenn and have been playing for the Red wings for a couple of years. I got it from an excellent source who has his finger on the pulse, the skate guy, that these boys father was in the Russian Mafia and the mom left him and took the boys to the U.S.A...now this guy doesn't come across as the type to lay a pipeline of B.S.

The Red wings have a small army of loyal support staff, older retired gentleman and even some handicapped people around the club...which shows they are fully enmeshed in the local community and they take pride in wearing the colors. Now the camp started on Friday with 4 teams, they started chopping the numbers down on Saturday nite and by Sunday had 2 teams left...tough camp as they had two 2 hour sessions per day finishing up with the all star game on Monday. We were bunked out at the fantastic circle 6 motel a couple of blocks away from crescent pointe arena..living in style :) Weyburn really doesn't have many quality places to eat out at, the regular fast food joints mind you we did find a nice italian place after testing the greasy waters. The town is a friendly place, lots of trucks and roughnecks and signs of money from the oil industries located in the area.

The coaches and scouts keep everything close to cuff, the fact Sam made it to the all star game on Monday at his age was a strong indicator of how well he did. Quite a few fights, and lots of hitting through out the camp and as the average age at the camp was 19 some very big guys out there. Sam was run over a few times but as I have always mentioned, you have to show that you can bounce back and not let that affect you. He had a good camp and as it was a grind I was impressed with his work. Stay tuned as the Legionnaires are hosting the Edge Academy from Calgary this weekend in a weekend 3 game set. The Edge Academy prep team will be a good test for the legion.